Andy GRAY started his professional career as a
player with Dundee United where he scored 46 goals in 62 appearances. In
October 1975, at the age of 19, he headed south to Aston Villa (newly promoted
to the First Division) and won England's golden boot in 1976/77 with his tally
of 25 league goals. His 29 goals in the following season earned him the PFA
Young Player of the Year and PFA Players' Player of the Year awards (a historic
double not repeated until Cristiano Ronaldo won both awards 30 years later). At
the time he was the youngest player to earn the Players' Player of the Year
award.

Andy GRAY then moved to Villa's
local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 1979 for a then-British record £1.5m. After
scoring the winning goal for Wolves in the 1980 League Cup final, he remained
with the club through their relegation in 1982 (despite interest from
Manchester United) and promotion a year later. He moved to Everton in November
1983 for £250,000. He enjoyed two seasons with the Merseyside club, winning the
FA Cup in May 1984 (scoring in the final against Watford). A year later, he won
the League Championship and European Cup Winners' Cup, also scoring in the
final of the latter. He also reached another FA Cup final, but this time he was
on the losing side as Everton were defeated by Manchester United.

Then came the arrival of England striker Gary
Lineker from Leicester City in the 1985 close season. Despite angry petitions
from Everton fans wanting to keep Gray at Goodison Park, he left the club on 10
July 1985, returning to Aston Villa in a £150,000 deal. Despite starting the
decade on a high as league champions in 1981 and European Cup winners in 1982,
they had now declined to mid table mediocrity and the return of Gray was unable
to turn things around as his arrival at Everton had done. He scored five goals
from 35 league games in 1985–86 as Villa narrowly avoided relegation to the
Second Division, and the following season he failed to score a single goal from
19 league games as Villa fell into the Second Division. He began the 1987–88
season still with Villa, but was transferred to their local rivals West
Bromwich Albion in September 1987 having not featured in a first team game for
Villa that season. His spell at Albion lasted less than a year, and was
uneventful as they narrowly avoided relegation from the Second Division. In
mid-1988, he joined Rangers. He spent one season at Ibrox, helping them win the
Scottish Premier Division title – the first of nine successive titles they would
win. He dropped into non-league football with Football Conference club
Cheltenham Town before retiring in 1990.

Gray's Player of the Year accolades in England
were not enough to convince Scotland manager Ally MacLeod to select him for the
1978 World Cup squad, as he was somewhat controversially excluded. Gray won 20
caps for Scotland, scoring 7 goals for his country. His full international
debut came on 17 December 1975 in a 1–1 draw with Romania. His final senior
appearance for Scotland came on 28 May 1985 in a 1-0 win over Iceland in a 1986
World Cup qualifier. This had been his first cap for two years, despite him
scoring twice in his penultimate appearance for the national side on 19 June
1983 in a 2-0 friendly win over Canada, and him excelling on the club level for
Everton after his transfer to the Merseyside club later in 1983. He was not
selected for any of Scotland's World Cup squads during his playing days but he was
into the two Panini album sitckers of 1978 and 1982.